Last week the Senate voted to invoke cloture on a bill to save the U.S. Postal Service. Ordinarily, “invoking cloture” means that the Senate agrees that there will be a simple-majority vote on the underlying bill. It requires 60 votes to invoke cloture but only 51 votes (or 50, if the vice-president breaks the tie) to pass a bill. When the Senate invoked cloture, they were saying that the Postal Service bill will not be filibustered. But looks can be deceiving. In order to get the Republicans to agree to a vote on the final bill, Majority Leader Harry Reid had to agree to the introduction of 39 (mostly frivolous) amendments. And those amendments (by the unanimous consent of the Senate) must get 60 votes to pass. In addition, the whole bill must get 60 votes to pass.
David Waldman explains:
After a 2:15 p.m. vote on that NLRB resolution, the Senate will move to debate and vote on a laundry list of 39 amendments to the postal reform bill, almost one third of which come from Senators Coburn (R-OK) and Paul (R-KY). Just sayin’. All amendments, and the bill itself, will be subject to the “painless filibuster.” That is, all will require 60 votes to pass. That’s some deal, isn’t it? In exchange for not filibustering the bill, we get to sit through 39 amendments, all of which will end up requiring 60 votes to pass anyway, not to mention the bill itself.
So, we’re not just dealing with an undemocratic Senate in the sense that Wyoming has the same number of senators as California. It’s not just that we need 60 votes to get a vote on a bill. Now we’re dealing with a 60 vote requirement to pass a bill.
And we have to walk through the delay of invoking cloture and then debating and voting on 39 amendments, most of which are ridiculous and will only get a small minority of support.
That’s why I’m sympathetic to former Sen. Judd Gregg’s recommendation that Congress just go home until after the election. That way they can stop being a national embarrassment and a joke for a few months.
I’m sympathetic, but I’d rather that they stay and give the voters an object lesson on why the modern GOP doesn’t deserve to wield power on any level.
Gregg’s whiny tone that there is equal responsibility between the Executive and Legislative Branches for the current situation is, pure and simple, a total fantasy. What next, teaming up with Friedman in the quest for the mythical third party knight-on-a-white-horse candidate to step in and save us all from the evil partisan rancor spewing from both sides of the aisle and the Oval Office??? Paging Bloomberg!!
I’m sympathetic, but I’d rather that they stay and give the voters an object lesson on why the modern GOP doesn’t deserve to wield power on any level.
Which would be great, if there was any chance that the GOP obstruction would get called out in such a way and with such frequency that the information is able to penetrate the skulls of those low information swing voters. Those same voters who are supposed to be the ones deciding which way things tilt in November.
both good points.
However, I’d say reality has more impact on how people vote than any other single factor. It’s just that it’s only a plurality. The remainder of the vote is unpredictable.
And the realities in the lives of so many voters is why there is even a murmur that Romney can be competitive. He really offers nothing, except the chance to do something different. Tragically and horribly different. Whether people recognize that remains to be seen.
He offers a bunch of lies and a bunch of crap.
If Congress doesn’t act, the Postmaster General is going to close half the facilities in the country and excess 210,000 jobs. They still may do it if some of those amendments, like the one forbidding collective bargaining, pass. Still, even if a bill passes the Senate, it’s unlikely the House will pass anything good. Probably some piece of crap will pass and Obama will sign it to avert doomsday.
I’ve been told that collective bargaining ban amendment is a Democratic amendment, probably Kent Conrad or Ben Nelson. The base bill (1789) is pretty bad and has Holy Joe Lieberman as author.
But, if something passes, I hope it has fingerprints, not voice vote.
I’m betting that I will be forcibly retired by the end of the year with my healthcare benefits stripped.
The collective bargaining ban is a Dem amendment?
How much of this before the handful of white working people still supporting the Dems because they are the lesser evil on the class war stuff stop thinking they actually are the lesser evil?
That’s what I was told by shop steward. I have since learned that it is an amendment authored by Rand Paul.
The confusion seems to be because Harry Reid approved the amendment for a vote. He also stopped a Rand Paul amendment banning foreign aid to Egypt. Why one and not the other? Maybe it was a horse trade?
The senate, a bad idea to begin with, now gets steadily worse.
It is unreformable.
We need to abolish it.
Since it will never pass an amendment abolishing itself we need a constitutional convention to do what these asshats won’t do.
But that won’t work either since the tea baggers will pack the convention with people who want to abolish the house and keep the senate, and turn the latter into a body of delegates appointed by the governors.
Just ask George Will.
Or the Koch brothers.
I agree with you that the original intent is moot. After two hundred years we no longer worry about big states bullying little states. Well, I worry about Texas dominating the school book market, but I wouldn’t worry if it was New York or California.
Remember, if we had a parliamentary system, Bohner would be Prime Minister! Of course, the R’s might not have won in 2010 because Nancy Pelosi would have been Prime Minister going into the election.
The Senate can’t even be disbanded or the number of representatives changed per state by law or amendment. It’s written into the Constitution that way.
We’d need a whole new Constitution to get rid of the Senate. So, reform seems more likely than elimination.